Riding the tides

San Jose State follows the flow to Western College Regional lead

STOCKTON, Calif. – If there’s one thing that throws most freshwater anglers for a loop, it’s a tidal fishery. However, the vexation can be one’s deliverance – just ask San Jose State’s Glen Wyatt and Eric Andersen who lead the National Guard FLW College Fishing Western Regional Championship on the California Delta.

Wyatt of Vallejo, Calif., and Andersen of San Jose, Calif., each weighed their three-fish limit and tallied a total of 14 pounds, 13 ounces that gave them a 1-pound, 2-ounce lead. Both anglers caught good fish, with Wyatt nabbing one that went about 5 pounds.

Understandably mum about specifics, Wyatt summarized his big catch: “I threw a worm, she bit it, I got her in the boat – clockwork, baby.”

Elaborating a little, Wyatt said that he and Andersen junk-fished most of the day. Their assortment of baits included topwaters, spinnerbaits, crankbaits, Texas rigs and finesse baits. “We’re throwing a lot of different stuff and trying to get what we can on what we can.”

Being able to catch fish throughout the day’s tide cycle was key. In a nutshell, the effects of lunar influence pushing and pulling the Pacific Ocean causes water throughout the Delta to rise and fall. These fluctuations affect depth and correlating access, but the essential element is current. Moving water freshens the environment and carries food sources in predictable directions past predictable points. Bass leverage these aqueous dynamics, and anglers who understand the movements can fish a proactive game.

“We’re looking at the tides and how they’re running,” Wyatt said. “We’re basing what we’re throwing on what the tide is doing. Slack low is really tough, but we caught fish throughout the tide. The key is knowing where the fish are going to be on every stage of the tide.”

Weather also played a role in the day’s happenings, as partly cloudy skies yielded to mostly sunny conditions by late morning. Andersen said that the brighter period actually produced greater results, as the bass sunk deeper into shady cover.

“We ended up catching some of our better fish once the sun came out,” Andersen said. “We did get our limit by about 9 (a.m.) and then we just started (culling) when we got bigger fish.

“You know those fish hang around cover – they don’t want to be out in the sun. You just have to find whatever you can throw into – tules, grass, stumps; you can pitch under docks. Just do what you can do to find cooler water.”

Jarrell and Walker take Arizona State to second

Growing up in Alaska, Mark Walker knows plenty about catching salmon and halibut, but he and his Arizona State teammate Joseph Jarrell showed that they are both pretty good at boating largemouth bass. Their limit catch weighed 13 pounds, 11 ounces and put them in second place.

The anglers stuck with plastics, but as Jarrell notes, rigging diversity was the key. “Man, we did absolutely everything to catch these fish. We used Texas rigs, and we caught a lot of fish on drop-shots. We both used different colors, and they all produced. Mark has his favorite colors; I have my favorite colors.”

Walker and Jarrell used a tactic known as “running the tide” – essentially, moving up or downstream to fish a particular tide stage at various geographic locations. When the optimal tide stage ends, you move along to find that scenario elsewhere. The low incoming tide proved most productive for the Arizona anglers.

“Our better fish came around 12 o’clock,” Jarrell said. “We had a tide change, and we were in the right place at the right time. The No. 1 key to our success was covering water until we found a good spot and a good tide. Once we found that, we stuck to it and loaded the boat.”

“Major” advantage puts Humboldt State in third

If local knowledge is good, then scientific knowledge is golden. That was the story for Humboldt State anglers J.D. Jones and Hideaki Kubo, who weighed a dual limit catch of 12 pounds, 8 ounces for third place. As fisheries biology majors, the teammates employed their understanding of largemouth bass habits to help them determine an effective strategy.

“We know where the fish are, and we know what they’re doing,” Jones said.

Kubo’s catch included a plump kicker that fell for a drop-shot.

Sacramento teams round out top five

Alec Brassington and Christopher Wong of Sacramento State finished fourth with 12-6. Stephen Lesieur and Matthew Paul, also of Sac State followed in fifth with 12-3.

Tough conditions

Many teams reported struggling in stingy Delta conditions. Mitch Kistner and Craig Carroll of Arizona State University managed just two fish for a 4-8 total. Tough start, but Kistner took it as an educational experience. “Today we pretty much eliminated everything we didn’t want to do, so tomorrow we’ll do the exact opposite.”

Alex Thiemann and Nick Burggraff of San Jose State fared better with a limit catch that weighed 10-1 and put them in eighth place. Still, theirs was no cake walk.

“There were no secrets today – the key was to keep trying different things and moving around until we found something that worked,” Thiemann said.

The afternoon bite seemed to be more productive across the board. Some of that is first-day adjustment, but an afternoon tide change also presented some new opportunities upon which several anglers capitalized. Steve Reed of UC Davis sits in 16th place with teammate Ken Gunderson. Their total weight was only 5-14, but the majority of that was Reed’s 4-pound, late-day surprise.

“I caught that fish on a red crankbait in 3 feet of water with five minutes to go,” Reed said.

Each of the 20 teams competing caught fish, and nine teams caught limits. Despite the hot conditions, 100 percent of the fish weighed were released alive.

Best of the rest

Rounding out the top 10 teams at the Western College Regional Championship:

6th: Ross Richards and Reed Frazier of University of Oregon, 11-14

7th: Matt Dixon and Spencer Moran of Chico State, 10-2

8th: Alex Thiemann and Nick Burggraff of San Jose State, 10-1

9th: Carter Troughton and Ryan Troughton of University of Oregon, 9-7

10th: Brent Perkins and Jeremy Pennell of Arizona State University, 9-5

Day two of National Guard FLW College Fishing action continues at Sunday’s takeoff, scheduled to take place at 7 a.m. (Pacific time) at Buckley Cove Park at 4311 Buckley Cove Way in Stockton.